Howard Ramos and Michael Ungar

Howard Ramos is a professor in the department of sociology and social anthropology, Dalhousie University. Michael Ungar is a Canada Research Chair in Child, Family, and Community Resilience, Dalhousie University.

In the fall of 2015, in the heat of a federal election, the country was deeply moved by images of refugees fleeing the Syrian civil war. No image had a greater emotional impact — or did more to influence Canada’s decision to open its borders to these refugees — more than the picture of three year-old Alan Kurdi’s lifeless body washed up on a Turkish shore.